Subject
Re: moth entomologist in one of V's novels
From
Date
Body
>> chat with an entomologist interested in moths. I believe they met at
>> night, outside a motel where there was a porch light on attracting
--- If it's a [motel], it'd have to be in the USA ?
Not an exact match :
When some entomological acquaintance happened to drop in,
Pilgram was only annoyed. .......................
............................
And as clearly as if it were a reminiscence Pilgram saw himself
troubling the sleep of a little hotel by stamping and jumping about a
room through the wide-open window of which, out of the black generous
night, a whitish moth had dashed in and was kissing its shadow all
over the ceiling.
> His favourite was the Red Admiral but it is his literary treatment of
> moths that is worthy of closer attention. In both Invitation to a
> Beheading and his short story Christmas, moths appear in the final
> scenes of the works, signifying a character's bodily death and spiritual
> rebirth. In both instances, the moths boast beautiful eyespots on their
> wings, symbolising windows into a transcendental realm.
I think these final descriptions are examples of
assertions of the form
-- The moths signify [some abstract concept]
-- The white butterfly is a symbol of ............
-- XXX (an element of a VN story) symbolizes YYY
that annoyed Nabokov.
Did he think the "symbol" notion reduced
his stories into Morality plays ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality_play
There is a discussion of this in the book [Nabokov's Blues],
but I'm still confused by what was so irritating about it.
Isn't that unavoidable, even if we don't use the word
symbol, symbolizes, (archetype) ... ?
Thank you for any help. HH
On 10/31/17, Hen Hanna <henhanna@gmail.com> wrote:
> Lolita [1997] was a great movie.
> Around 49 min into the film, when H.H. meets CQ (Frank Langella),
> moths are flying into a bug-zapper (?).
>
> I just checked and it's not in Lolita -- apprently copied from
> another VN book.
>
> (It seems a bit odd that there's no separate word
> for a moth entomologist. )
>
>
> My copy of [Annotated Lolita] is the 1970 edition.
> Is the new version greately expanded (other than the Index) ?
> If so, I'll have to get it.
>
> Thank you. HH
>
>
>>>> His favourite was the Red Admiral but it is his literary treatment of
>>>> moths that is worthy of closer attention. In both Invitation to a
>>>> Beheading and his short story Christmas, moths appear in the final
>>>> scenes of the works, signifying a character's bodily death and spiritual
>>>> rebirth. In both instances, the moths boast beautiful eyespots on their
>>>> wings, symbolising windows into a transcendental realm.
>
>
> On 10/29/17, VN Alexander <alexander@dactyl.org> wrote:
>> Dear Nabokovians,
>>
>> Please help me remember in which novel the narrator mentions having a
>> chat with an entomologist interested in moths. I believe they met at
>> night, outside a motel where there was a porch light on attracting
>> moths. I may be misremembering these details.
>>
>> Thanks for your help.
>>
>> Yours lazily,
>>
>> Tori Alexander
>>
>>
>> --
>> ______________________________
>> VN Alexander, PhD
>> Director, Dactyl Foundation
>> Public Scholar, NY Council for the Humanities
>> www.victorianalexander.com
>> www.dactylfoundation.org
>>
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,dana.dragunoiu@gmail.com,shvabrin@humnet.ucla.edu
Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
Nabokov Studies: https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/257
Chercheurs Enchantes: http://www.vladimir-nabokov.org/association/chercheurs-enchantes/73
Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
Search the archive with L-Soft: https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L
Manage subscription options :http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=NABOKV-L
>> night, outside a motel where there was a porch light on attracting
--- If it's a [motel], it'd have to be in the USA ?
Not an exact match :
When some entomological acquaintance happened to drop in,
Pilgram was only annoyed. .......................
............................
And as clearly as if it were a reminiscence Pilgram saw himself
troubling the sleep of a little hotel by stamping and jumping about a
room through the wide-open window of which, out of the black generous
night, a whitish moth had dashed in and was kissing its shadow all
over the ceiling.
> His favourite was the Red Admiral but it is his literary treatment of
> moths that is worthy of closer attention. In both Invitation to a
> Beheading and his short story Christmas, moths appear in the final
> scenes of the works, signifying a character's bodily death and spiritual
> rebirth. In both instances, the moths boast beautiful eyespots on their
> wings, symbolising windows into a transcendental realm.
I think these final descriptions are examples of
assertions of the form
-- The moths signify [some abstract concept]
-- The white butterfly is a symbol of ............
-- XXX (an element of a VN story) symbolizes YYY
that annoyed Nabokov.
Did he think the "symbol" notion reduced
his stories into Morality plays ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality_play
There is a discussion of this in the book [Nabokov's Blues],
but I'm still confused by what was so irritating about it.
Isn't that unavoidable, even if we don't use the word
symbol, symbolizes, (archetype) ... ?
Thank you for any help. HH
On 10/31/17, Hen Hanna <henhanna@gmail.com> wrote:
> Lolita [1997] was a great movie.
> Around 49 min into the film, when H.H. meets CQ (Frank Langella),
> moths are flying into a bug-zapper (?).
>
> I just checked and it's not in Lolita -- apprently copied from
> another VN book.
>
> (It seems a bit odd that there's no separate word
> for a moth entomologist. )
>
>
> My copy of [Annotated Lolita] is the 1970 edition.
> Is the new version greately expanded (other than the Index) ?
> If so, I'll have to get it.
>
> Thank you. HH
>
>
>>>> His favourite was the Red Admiral but it is his literary treatment of
>>>> moths that is worthy of closer attention. In both Invitation to a
>>>> Beheading and his short story Christmas, moths appear in the final
>>>> scenes of the works, signifying a character's bodily death and spiritual
>>>> rebirth. In both instances, the moths boast beautiful eyespots on their
>>>> wings, symbolising windows into a transcendental realm.
>
>
> On 10/29/17, VN Alexander <alexander@dactyl.org> wrote:
>> Dear Nabokovians,
>>
>> Please help me remember in which novel the narrator mentions having a
>> chat with an entomologist interested in moths. I believe they met at
>> night, outside a motel where there was a porch light on attracting
>> moths. I may be misremembering these details.
>>
>> Thanks for your help.
>>
>> Yours lazily,
>>
>> Tori Alexander
>>
>>
>> --
>> ______________________________
>> VN Alexander, PhD
>> Director, Dactyl Foundation
>> Public Scholar, NY Council for the Humanities
>> www.victorianalexander.com
>> www.dactylfoundation.org
>>
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,dana.dragunoiu@gmail.com,shvabrin@humnet.ucla.edu
Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
Nabokov Studies: https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/257
Chercheurs Enchantes: http://www.vladimir-nabokov.org/association/chercheurs-enchantes/73
Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
Search the archive with L-Soft: https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L
Manage subscription options :http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=NABOKV-L